Curator David O'Halloran says he came up with the theme after moving to Dandenong three years ago for work.

"It seemed to be the appropriate theme for Dandenong," he said.

"There are a number of Islamic people here and a number of hoodie-wearers around the area.

"Dandenong is stereotyped as kind of a rough area, so I just saw an opportunity to break down some of those stereotypes."

The pieces include photographs of judge's wigs by Georgia Metaxas, bronze masks made out of women's moisturising masks, chador shapes with Persian text in them and pictures and patterns made out of cotton thread.

"The work made by Michele Elliot [has] hundreds and hundreds of cotton threads draped across the wall connected to pins," Mr O'Halloran said.

"The pins are arranged in the form of the Himalayan Mountain."

Michele Elliot based her piece on a picture on her Indian mother.

Another artist Rubaba Haider also used her mother as inspiration for her piece called Antiquity 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Mr O'Halloran says there's been a positive reaction from those who've seen the exhibition.

"I think people are a little surprised at how poetic the show is," he said.

"I think some of the people were expecting it to be more didactically political rather than quietly political."